19 Months in the Making!

Well, Ben's had an eventful past couple of months. He went for his 18 month check-up in January and got that last set of shots until he's almost school age ~ whoo hoo! He was still in the 75% for height at 33 inches and up to the 30% in weight at 24.5 pounds.

He's saying so many new words every day - it's so fun to hear! Some here lately have been apple, ball, bowl, orange, downstairs, upstairs, more, No, Yes, sock, Mimi, Bop ("Pop"), ice (that's a favorite!), berry, baby, Ben (sounds like "men"), mommy (still calls me Mama 99% of the time) , and please. He can also put them together in little short sentences, and has said bye bye dada, bye bye mama, bye bye bubba, hello dada, I la la dada, let's go!, and more please. He even made a sentence in sign language the other day by signing "more" then "bath"...it was the cutest thing EVER (as he's sitting in the empty bathtub that all the water has drained out)!!!

Ben had a fun time at Grandmama's for the Superbowl. We made a game board where you put your initials in a block and you win if that block has the score for the end of any of the quarters in the game. He enjoyed picking his own squares, and ended up beating all of us because he had the winning score for two different quarters - that means he won $10!! Ha!!

Here we are on a warm January day playing on the neighbor's cool tree swing.

So what else is new? Lately Ben likes carrying around a pair of his old cotton pajamas, or one of my soft pajama t-shirts. So, I got out a bunch of little baby blankies we call "lovies" and he takes one to bed every night now and seems to really find a lot of comfort in it.

Ben's also trying LOTS more foods these days....WHEW! He will eat anything with ketchup (green beans dipped in ketchup, anyone?!). One of his newest foods is shreds of carrot. Mark and I are so, so glad that he's eating more with the family now rather than us feeding him the few certain foods he liked.

Lastly, he's starting to mind a tiny bit, but is still generally unfazed by "time out". Sometimes when he does something he knows he's not supposed to do, like drop food on the floor from his highchair, or throw a toy, he looks at me and says, "Noooooooo" with the cutest little point of the finger - it's all I can do not to scoop him up and laugh!!

Ben attended his first "big boy" birthday party last month, too....here he is at Appalachian Gymnastics, having a BALL on the slide (climbing up all by himself!!), and loving the trampoline floor!